PETS & ANIMALS

Wolf dominates pack mate to steal deer leg

Voyageurs Wolf Project | January 29, 2026

A rare glimpse of the competition/aggression between pack members for food. In this video, Wolf W8T, a subordinate yearling male in the Thuja Pack, walks by the camera with a deer leg from a nearby kill.

However, he turns around and submissively walks back toward the breeding/dominant male of the pack, Wolf O3S. Wolf O3S then dominates Wolf W8T (turn volume up) and takes the deer leg.

Wolf O3S carries the leg into the woods a bit and consumes it for a few minutes before heading out of the frame. And then 10 minutes later, a red fox comes by!

This kind of competition for food resources around kills highlights the point we were making in our most recent post about why wolves carry chunks of carcasses away from kills.

Further, it is this kind of competition—where dominant wolves restrict young subordinate wolves access to food—that likely causes young wolves to leave their packs and search for greener grass elsewhere.

A few excerpts from some scientific articles summarize this well:

“Pups are subordinate to both parents and to older siblings, yet they are fed preferentially by the parents…parents both dominate older offspring and restrict their food intake when food is scarce, feeding pups instead. Thus, the most practical effect of social dominance is to allow the dominant individual the choice of whom to allot food.”
-Mech (1999)

“Competition to remain in a natal pack must be high, and disperser must be those that lost in the competition. Furthermore, because of the uncertain nature of a hunting lifestyle and fluctuating food supply, pack social dynamics much change frequently”.
-Mech (2020)

Sources:
Mech 1999. Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs. Canadian Journal of Zoology.

Mech. 2020. Unexplained patterns of grey wolf natal dispersal. Mammal Review.

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Written by Voyageurs Wolf Project